


L Words

by ClassicRockInTheTardis



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, I'm an actual trash can oops, I'm such trash help, M/M, More characters to be added later, Mutual Pining, Tangled AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-09-17 14:18:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9328526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClassicRockInTheTardis/pseuds/ClassicRockInTheTardis
Summary: Basically a Tangled AU based off of kyyhky's wonderful AU fanart. Viktor is Rapunzel, Yuuri is Eugene, this is gonna be one hell of a ride. Definitely gonna switch up some plot points and characters to make sure that no one is too OOC, but don't worry, all the major stuff is gonna be there.My tumblr is https://gryffindorofgallifrey.tumblr.com/ so you're welcome to come yell at me to write more if I've been dead for a while (or just about anything).





	1. Prologue: Legend

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea from this: http://kyyhky.tumblr.com/tagged/Tangled-AU wonderful tumblr seriously go follow them and the AU it's brilliant. I am switching some stuff up from their art but they are my inspiration :)

Long before anyone can remember, a drop of moonlight fell to this earth. It grew in the rich soil of the north, blooming and growing into a brilliant silver flower, glowing in the light from whence it came. 

For years, the ancients protected it, made medicines from its petals and leaves, cultivated its sproutlings into what came to be known as moonflowers, beautiful in their own right but having none of the healing properties of the original. Only in the rarest cases did they ever spin magic from the flower through song, only to save a child or a parent who would not respond to medicines. For the ancients, the true moon flower was a sacred thing, never to be used for selfish gain.

Of course, gradually, the civilization of the ancients faded and changed, villages turning to towns, towns turning to kingdoms. And as the castles rose in the north, the truth of the Moon Flower sunk into legends and lore, a distant myth rather than an object of reality.

Until the queen got sick. 

The royal couple of the kingdom by the sea had been trying to get pregnant for years, all to no avail. So when the queen finally conceived, they were overjoyed, the kingdom rejoicing at the thought of a baby prince or princess. But then the queen got sick.

Very sick.

So sick, the court physicians doubted if she’d make it, let alone the baby. The king was desperate, desperate enough to turn to old stories, stories that everyone thought were simply fiction. He sent all the troops he could spare to search for the flower of legends.

And they found it. Somehow, by some miracle, they found the Moon Flower in time, digging it up and bringing it back to the kingdom. The physicians were not like the old medicine men of the ancients; they knew not how to create medicines from parts of the flower while letting it live. So to save the queen’s life, they sacrificed a legend.

But for the monarchs and the kingdom, it was worth it, especially when the queen gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, with bright blue eyes and impossibly silver hair. They named him Viktor and celebrated his birth by lighting a lantern on the day he was born, a single silver and blue light floating into the winter sky. It wasn’t long before the castle was filled with the shouts and giggles of the small child as he learned to crawl, then walk, then finally run through the halls, terrorizing the staff and babbling nonsense words nonstop by the time fall came. Those were the days where everything seemed bright and wonderful, like all was right in the world. 

But fall did come. 

Unbeknownst to the kingdom, there was one who had still worshiped the Moon Flower, one who had been around since the fall of the ancients. An evil witch who used the moon’s power not for the community, but for herself, to keep herself young and beautiful and alive. And she was getting desperate. It had been a year since “her” flower was “stolen,” a year minus three months since the child was born, a year since she had last revitalized herself. Her hair had turned white, no inch of her skin was unwrinkled, and her joints ached with every step she took. 

She hadn’t heard that the physicians had to sacrifice the Moon Flower for the queen and her son. If she had, perhaps she would never have snuck into the castle that fateful night, never had sung the ancient hymn, never have learned that it was the young prince who now held the power of the moon. But alas, she did indeed find the child, tried to cut some of his hair, the brilliant silver hair that now reached the baby’s shoulders, watched as the strands turned gray and lost their magic, the glow from the manifested moonlight halting abruptly as her spell was cut off. She felt the magic leave her as the magic stopped, felt the ache returning to her bones, felt her skin shrivel, and in her panic, she stole the boy, vanishing into the night with him as quickly as she had come. Determined to protect her prize, she locked the boy in a tower far away from the castle town on the sea, far in a distance forest, hidden by rocks and trees so that no one could find them. 

In the morning, the kingdom was panicked. The king and queen sent all their forces out to look for their son, but none were successful. For months, they hoped, hoped that they would be granted another miracle. But the child’s first birthday soon came, and there was no sign of him. In their grief, the king and queen launched a whole fleet of lanterns on their son’s birthday, hoping without hope that one day, their prince would see them and follow them home. 

And thus, Viktor grew up, not knowing a life or love outside of his tower and his “Mother,” only looking with longing out his window every year on his birthday when the floating lights flew into the cold December sky, wondering when his life would begin.


	2. Chapter 1: Longing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was supposed to be doing my philosophy reading but I hate philosophy and the reading was stupid so I did this instead (suck it, Descartes). It was done ridiculously fast, so please let me know about any typos/spelling/grammar mistakes and I'll make sure to fix them!!

Viktor woke with the sun on the day before his 22nd birthday, just as he had done for as long as he could remember. He stretched and blinked the sleep out of his eyes before nudging the poodle sleeping at the foot of his bed with his toes. 

“Makkachin.”

The dog remained asleep, letting out a soft huff.

“Maaaaakkachinnnnn.”

This time Makkachin opened one eye, and gave Viktor a quick glare before tucking his head back into his stomach. Viktor scooted to the end of the bed, laying down next to his friend and running his fingers through the poodle’s curly brown fur. 

“Come onnnn, Makka, it’s time to get up.”

The dog gave an annoyed huff, purposefully ignoring his human.

“Don’t be like that,” Viktor reprimanded kindly. “It’s a new day, you should be excited!”

Makkachin slowly opened his eyes, giving Viktor a long look before rolling onto his back, sticking his feet in the air in a clear act of “go away and let me sleep you crazy human.” 

Viktor craned his neck so that his head rested upside down on the mattress, face to face with his dog.

“Come on, Makkachin, don’t you want breakfast?”

The poodle opened his eyes at that, recognizing the tone in his owner’s voice that meant food before licking Viktor’s face and jumping down from the bed. 

Viktor giggled before quickly dressing in his usual light blue tunic and racing after his dog, his ridiculously long silver hair trailing behind him. Makkachin sat wagging in the makeshift kitchen next to the cupboard that held his can of food by the time Viktor got to the main floor (he had to stop to unwind his hair from where it had gotten caught on one of the torch holders lining the stairway to his bedroom). Viktor knelt down, petting Makkachin’s head in between his ears, and telling him he was a good boy as Makkachin’s tail thumped on the hard stone of the tower as Viktor filled his food dish.

As his dog finished eating, Viktor started on the daily chores, knowing his mother would be upset if they weren’t done by the time she came for her morning visit. He’d have to brush his hair before she arrived too (she hated seeing tangles in it), but knew that it would be useless to try until after the cleaning was done, it’d just get in a bad state again. He sighed as he got the broom out from its corner, thinking to himself that it was just the same old monotony day in and day out. Sweeping, mopping, cleaning, reading, painting, dancing, whatever he could do to pass the hours. _At least Makkachin keeps me company, changing things up a bit,_ he thought, smiling at his dog fondly as Makkachin hunted for a pile of sunlight on the floor to take a nap in. 

It was only when he was absentmindedly wiping down a counter that he let his mind wander and eyes drift to stare out the window. _Tomorrow,_ he thought, _tomorrow I’ll see the floating lights again._ He smiled at the thought, remembering years past on his birthday when he’d watch the moon rise and the floating lights rise with it into the cold December air, like a special birthday present just for him from the cosmos. All he’d ever wanted, apart from Makkachin, was to see the lights in person, not just from his window, to go down to the outside world and see the lights he knew were meant for him. 

_This year,_ he thought to himself, _I’ll ask Mother to take me._ He was going to be 22, surely that was old enough to finally see the outside world, even for a short while. 

But in the meantime…

He dropped the rag he was using to scrub the counter, running over to study the empty space above the mantel, one of the only large empty spaces left on the walls. He’d been saving it for something special, not wanting to waste such an area on some trivial painting he was doing just to pass the time. He held his thumb up to the space, measuring it visually before turning to this window and doing the same. A perfect fit. 

Abandoning all thoughts of his cleaning, he ran to start mixing the paints he’d need, setting his palette on the floor as he worked. Makkachin padded over curiously, dipping first his nose and then a paw in the dark blue paint before Viktor could notice. 

“Makkachin!”

Viktor quickly set the palette up on a table before grabbing a rag for Makkachin and a mop for the floor, trying to clean up the mess before the paint set into the stone. He eyed the blue paw prints on the floor thoughtfully for a minute. A painting on the floor could be interesting, but he’d have to find a way to keep Makkachin from walking on it while it dried. For now, he had a different goal in mind. Sighing, he picked the palette back up, careful to keep an eye on Makkachin as he worked. Figuring he had the colors he needed, Viktor gathered an armful of his hair in one hand, holding his palette in the other and brushes in his teeth. Carefully, he swung his hair up and around one of the rafters, yanking it steady to make a temporary pulley system to lift him up to the mantel. Dropping lightly onto the ledge, he set to work.

Viktor was sweating by the time he finished, despite the chill outside. It was one of the biggest pieces he’d done in a while, taking up almost half the wall from the floor to the ceiling of the tower. Most of the painting was taken up by a dark night sky, small stars glinting in the distance, with the floating lights glowing larger and brighter than any star, their silver and blue forms floating towards the moon. Below the skyscape, he’d painted himself and Makkachin, outside of any tower, him kneeling on the edge of a cliff with Makkachin sitting beside him, one hand of Viktor’s resting in the dog’s fur as they both looked to the sky. Painting-Viktor’s hair flowed behind him, glowing with a silver-white sheen that only appeared when he or his mother sang for it, trailing down the cliff side and turning into a silver river rushing below the scene, reflecting the floating lights in its waters. 

“What do you think, Makkachin?” Viktor asked the poodle who had wandered over to sit next to his human as he admired his newest addition. “Pretty good, huh?”

Makkachin barked happily in agreement. 

Viktor started cleaning up his paints and washing out his brushes, just putting them on a towel to dry when his eye caught the sundial on the opposing wall.

“Mother’s going to be here soon!” he cried in dismay, gathering as much of his hair as he could manage and racing up the stairs to find his brush, Makkachin barking excitedly as he ran after him. 

By the time Viktor finished brushing his hair, getting all the tangles and poodle fur out of it, he was exhausted, letting out a tired breath as he finally got to the end of his hair, swinging his feet aimlessly in the air under the rafter he was perched on. It was nearly noon, he noticed, realizing that he had just barely managed to get everything done before his mother arrived. 

Sure enough, he was just swinging down from the rafters when he heard a familiar, “Viktor, my flower! Let down your hair!”

“Coming, Mother!” he cried, throwing his hair around the bar over the window before tossing it down. He gritted his teeth as he felt the familiar tug, throwing his weight into holding his hair so it didn’t hurt his scalp as he hoisted his mother into the tower. 

“Good morning, Mother,” he said, giving her a quick hug as he helped her through the window. Even though Viktor was decently tall, his mother was still an inch of two taller than him, and he always felt small in her presence, especially when her dark winter cloak and dark hair provided such a stark, strong contrast to himself. 

“Oh darling,” his mother announced, shoving her basket into his arms and throwing her hood back dramatically. “I don’t know how you manage to do that every day. It must be exhausting.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Viktor said as he slipped his hair down from the bar, knowing his mother hated complaining, even if it was exhausting to haul her up every day. 

“Then I don’t know why it takes so long,” his mother replied in a singsong voice, patting his cheek as if he were still a child. “If Makkachin is making you late–”

“No!” Viktor cried, panic entering his voice slightly. “No, it was just me, I got up a bit late, Makkachin has nothing to do with it.”

His mother had given him Makkachin a few years earlier as a birthday present when he had mentioned getting lonely and wanting her around more. But he knew that if the dog started making any trouble, his mother would take him away in an instant. Quickly, before she could say anything more about his poodle, Viktor set her basket of supplies on the counter. Rushedly before his nerve gave out, he said, “So, Mother, as you know, tomorrow is kind of a special day, and I was thinking–”

“Viktor, please,” she said wearily, cutting him off. “Mother’s feeling a bit worn, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, of course!” he cried, setting a chair behind her that she sunk into before grabbing his hairbrush that was luckily still on the main level and kneeling in front of her, shoving the brush into her hand. All as one word, he sang quickly, ignoring her chastisement to slow down, “Flowergleamandglowletyourpowershinemaketheclockreversebringbackwhatoncewasmine,” his hair glowing white for a few seconds before he turned to her and said, “So, as I was saying, мама, tomorrow is–”

“Viktor,” his mother said sternly. “Russian. You know how I feel about the Russian.”

Viktor stopped his ramblings abruptly, hanging his head slightly in embarrassment. For some reason, he’d slip into a mixture of Russian and English when he grew excited. He never knew where his knowledge of the few words came from, seeing as his mother hated it when he used any of them. He suspected maybe they were from his father that he could not remember and his mother never spoke of, but she had never given him answers when he asked about it. 

“Sorry, Mother,” he said abashed, “I’m just excited. Cause tomorrow…tomorrow’s my birthday!”

For a minute his mother was quiet, and then she gave a soft laugh, teasing him, “No, you must be mistaken. I distinctly remember your birthday being last year.”

“That’s the thing about birthday’s,” Viktor said smiling, glad they were back to their usual routine of gentle teases. “They’re kind of an annual thing. And, I’ve been thinking, about what I wanted.”

He leaped up from the floor, throwing his hair around a handle by the mantel to pull back the curtains he’d rigged up to hide his painting. 

“See, everyone year on my birthday, always on my birthday, there are these lights. They come at night and float into the sky and I know they’re for me, and I was just hoping, well I was hoping maybe you’d take me to see them?”

He ended on a questioning tone, hoping that finally this year, she’d let him go. 

But instead, she laughed off handedly, saying, “Oh, those are only the stars, flower.”

“No, but see, I’ve mapped the stars,” he said, pointing to a painting near the top of the tower where he had painted his star maps a few years ago to try and see if the lights followed any of the regular patterns. “And these are different. Please, Mother, I’m going to be 22, I just want to go out and see–”

“No,” his mother said sternly, her face hard.

“But–”

“Viktor, I said no!” she shouted, before taking a deep breath to calm down. But when she spoke next, her voice still had the same sharp edge to it. “You are never to leave this tower. You know that, you know why we stay up here. To keep you safe. If anyone learned about you, if anyone found you, well I dread to think.”

She glared at him as he shrank back into himself, all excitement and zeal gone. 

“The world is cruel out there. Evil men with pointy teeth, ruffians, thugs, bandits, anyone who would get their hands on you would do terrible things to you, things even I don’t want to think about. Here you are safe and protected. Here is where you are going to stay. Do I make myself clear?”

Viktor hung his head.

“Yes, Mother.”

Her face softened slightly, and she stepped towards him, giving his a small embrace that he leaned into, wrapping his arms around her as she gently stroked his hair.

“Oh, my flower, I’m sorry. I hate fighting with you. I just want to keep you safe, you know this.”

“I know, Mother,” Viktor said smally. 

She tilted his head down softly, kissing his hair lightly before saying, “I love you very much, my flower.”

“I love you too.”

She pulled him away from her so that she could give him one last glare. 

“Now I don’t want to hear any more nonsense about the stars. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Remember what I’ve always taught you, dear.”

Viktor sighed as he said quietly, “Mother knows best.”

“Good,” she said sternly. “I have to leave, but I’ll be back for dinner as always.”

He helped her gather her things before throwing his hair back out the window and letting her down, smiling softly as she told him, “I love you most,” before climbing down out of the tower. 

Viktor sighed quietly as she left, Makkachin coming out from his bedroom where he had hid when his mother started yelling and nuzzling Viktor’s hand as he leaned on the edge of the windowsill and looked towards the sky as if he could see the floating lights a day early even in the light of the sun. 

"One day, Makkachin,” Viktor said, burying his face in the poodle’s fur. “One day, I’ll see them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what I'm doing with the witch is that whenever it's a chapter from Viktor's POV she's just going to be called his mother. From anyone else's, it'll be the witch or the old woman or something like that. I didn't want to designate a character from the show as that evil so I'm purposefully leaving her ambiguous! (Also get ready for the Yu(u)ri's next chapter!!)


	3. Chapter 2: Look

Yuuri couldn’t believe the view. 

Of course, he’d grown up playing on the streets and climbing houses and trees just like the other common children, but nothing could compare to _this_. It was incredible, with the entirety of the town surrounding the castle easily seen, and even a few hundred acres of the rest of the kingdom beyond. Yuuri could almost convince himself that from up here, he could see the land his parents had sailed from, could see the mountains of Japan rising out of the ocean seas, could see the smoke billowing from the volcanoes that drove his family from their homeland before he was born.

One could dream.

“Eros,” hissed a voice from the other side of the roof. “Hurry up!”

“Did you see this view?” Yuuri asked, still focused on the landscape below him. 

“Yes, yes, very nice, now hurry up unless you want to get caught!”

Yuuri turned his back on the kingdom spread below him, quickly moving to where the other two men were working on removing a skylight that was set into the roof. The dyed-blonde man put a comforting hand on his shoulder. 

“It is a nice view.”

Yuuri smiled in acknowledgment. 

“Thanks, Chris.”

“I told you, use the code names when we’re on a job!”

“I would, but there’s no way I’m calling you ‘Ass-Man’ so come up with a better one,” Yuuri ribbed as Chris pouted. “Plus we’re the only ones around so…”

“Got it!” the other man said triumphantly, carefully placing the pane of glass against the side of the roof. “Alright, Eros, you’re up.”

“I still don’t see why I have to do this part,” Yuuri sighed.

“Well, you can’t expect King JJ to do it!” JJ said indignantly.

“You know,” Yuuri said, “the whole point of code names is to keep your actual name a secret.”

Chris gave a soft snort as Yuuri continued, “And that’s not a good reason and you know it.”

“It’s because you’re the only one small enough to fit,” Chris answered. “Curse of being the youngest.”

Yuuri sighed again.

“Alright, lets just get this over with.”

Carefully, the other two men hooked him into the harness, Yuuri threatening to come back and haunt them both if they dropped him, before slowly lowering him into the castle through the now-open window. 

Yuuri hated that he had to do this, that any of them had to do any of what they’d done, that they had to steal at all. Yet, here they all were. Desperate souls, hoping the money they could get from this heist could make it their last. And it wasn’t like they were stealing something that was being used…

Still, no one deserved to lose a memory.

Yuuri gritted his teeth, pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind. This was just another job, that was it. People were counting on him. He didn’t have time to slip out of the Eros persona he put on for these jobs, out of the nonchalance and snark he embodied and into his normal, anxious skin. Not when so many depended on him.

He landed lightly on the floor of the castle, quietly slipping out of the harness. The skylight unfortunately wasn’t positioned directly over their target object, but Yuuri wasn’t worried. He’d been dodging the gazes of guards as soon as he started in this line of work. He was smaller than most men (although not as small as his cousin Minami, but there was no way he’d let the 12-year-old get caught up in something like this), and his early dance background helped him be able to stay light on his feet. Effortlessly, he made his way to the dais in the center of the room, careful not to make any noise that would alert the guards, who had their attention centered on the doors to the chamber. He grabbed the crown off the podium, taking a few seconds to admire how the sapphires along the edges of the simple silver circlet caught the light, before stuffing it into his satchel. Yuuri raced back to the rope dangling from the ceiling, not bothering to attempt to strap himself into the harness, instead just grabbing on tightly before giving it two quick yanks to signify for Chris and JJ to pull him up. 

When Yuuri was about 20 feet in the air, he let himself glance down into the chamber below, barely believing they’d been able to pull off a stunt like this. 

That’s when it happened. 

His glasses slid off his face, landing on the floor of the chamber with an ear rattling clanging in the otherwise silent room.

Normally, Yuuri simply kept pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, as one who has ever even worn sunglasses knows. However, both of his hands were actively engaged in making sure he didn’t fall to his death, so his glasses simply slid off his nose, aided by the nervous sweat on his face. 

As one cohesive unit, the guards turned, stared at the glasses on the floor, noticed the empty dais, and then let their gazes wander up to where Yuuri was dangling awkwardly from the ceiling. 

“You guys wouldn’t mind tossing those back up to me, now, would you?” Yuuri asked, trying to maintain his persona and not let his inner screaming manifest itself visibly. “No. Shame, I liked that pair. Bye!”

With that, he clambered the rest of the 40 feet up the rope as fast as he could, grateful for his years climbing trees and the sides of houses when he was younger, pulling himself onto the roof gasping where Chris and JJ stared at him in confusion. 

“We have to go,” Yuuri panted, trying to catch his breath. “Now!”

And with that, the three men turned and ran, ran across the roofs of the village and down into the forest beyond.

____________________________________________________________________

 

Yuri loved it when his grandfather brought him to work with him. Not because he liked seeing what his grandfather did, no. That stuff was boring, a bunch of old people sitting around a table and talking. Even if two of those old people were the king and queen. 

No, Yuri liked going to the castle with his grandfather because that meant he could bother Yakov and _that_ meant he got to spar with a real sword. 

He never got to spar with real swords in the village. The adults said it was because they were too heavy for him, but he thought it was because they were over-protective. He’d held an adult sword before, they weren’t _that_ much heavier than the smaller ones he used when he visited the castle. 

But what the adults said, goes, so Yuri waited in anticipation for the days when his grandfather brought him to work. 

He was in the middle of sparring with one of the girls, Mila, when two guards came rushing into the training yard, shouting something about thieves in the castle and waving what looked like…a pair of glasses. Everyone quickly sprang into action, the older kids in the yard herding the younger ones into the weapons room, Yakov barking orders to the guards and calling for others. Everyone seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Everyone, that is, except Yuri. 

He stood in the middle of the yard in confusion for a few seconds, looking around before he spotted his grandfather coming into the yard from one of the side gates. Yuri ran up to him, almost jumping into his arms before remembering he had a sword in his hands. That would have been bad. 

“Grampa, what should I do?” the ten-year-old asked eagerly. 

“You,” his grandfather said not unkindly, “should go home to your parents. We’ve got this here.”

Yuri frowned stubbornly. 

“No! I wanna help!” He turned to Yakov, who was still giving the guards orders. “I can help, can’t I, Yakov?”

The older man looked at Yuri surprised.

“Well –”

“They said thieves right?” Yuri interrupted. “That means you’re gonna track them, and you know me and Max are the best tracking team you’ve got. We helped find that girl last year, remember that?”

“That was –”

Yuri’s grandfather cut the other man off. 

“Well, this group isn’t dangerous.”

Yuri wasn’t sure who was more stunned, himself or Yakov. 

“If Yakov is willing, I don’t see why you can’t go,” his grandfather said. “It would make for a good training exercise.”

Yuri glanced up at the other man hopefully. 

Yakov sighed. 

“I cannot deny that you and that horse of yours have an uncanny ability to track people down.”

He fixed Yuri in a sharp gaze.

“You’ll have to follow my orders without question.”

Yuri felt his heart leap, but he shoved it back down in his chest, swallowing and nodding as he replied, “Yessir.”

“And if I think it’s getting too dangerous or you’re compromising the mission, you go back immediately.”

“Yessir.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, before Yakov said gruffly, “Well, what are you waiting for? Go and saddle your horse, boy!”

Yuri gave a slight bow, giving one more “yessir,” before quickly hugging his grandfather (making sure his sword was sheathed first), before running through the corridors to the stables. 

____________________________________________________________________

It hurt when Yuuri ran into the tree, but he wasn’t surprised. Without his glasses, he’d been lucky he’d made it this far into the woods without seriously injuring himself.

Still, he wasn’t pleased to get smacked in the face with a branch full of leaves.

“Ow!”

He was batting the branch out of his face when he saw…something on the trunk of the tree. He squinted, leaning closer to see what it was.

Wanted posters. For Eros, King JJ, and…Ass-Man. Lord knows how _that_ caught on. None of the posters looked exactly like them, at least not enough for them to not be able to go home in a few months once the hubbub dies down. But there was one thing…

“Eros, come on,” Chris nagged. 

“Did you see this?” Yuuri asked, waving his poster in front of Chris’s face. “They got my glasses completely wrong!”

Christ gave him a look.

“We are running for our lives right now from the palace troops through the forest and you’re worried about how you look on a wanted poster?”

Yuuri grumbled, stuffing the poster absentmindedly into the satchel on his hip before racing after the other two men. 

They’d only gotten a little further into the woods when Yuuri heard the thundering of hooves behind them. He looked over his shoulder for just a second, squinting and scanning the woods behind to see if the troops were close, but when he looked back ahead of him, Chris and JJ had vanished somewhere into the blurry trees ahead, forgetting Yuuri couldn’t see. He whispered for them quietly, not wanting to raise his voice to alert the troops to where he was, but there was no reply. Great, just his luck. 

Cursing under his breath, Yuuri ran on, picking his way through the trees at random. 

Which apparently was not the best idea, seeing as it quickly led him to the side of a cliff. 

He backed up, ready to sprint back into the woods, when he heard a high-pitched voice shouts, “Aha! Found you!”

He turned around, careful not to step over the edge of the cliff, and squinted towards where the voice had come from. 

It was a kid. A small kid, Yuuri’d say about 8 or 9, blonde and pale and on the back of a white horse that was equally as blonde and pale. 

“I told Yakov we were the best, I told him!” 

The kid, Yuuri figured he was a boy based on his voice, punched the air with his fist. 

“Look kid,” Yuuri began, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

The kid scoffed. 

“That’s not going to be a problem,” he replied. “Me and Max have you cornered.”

“Max?” Yuuri asked instinctively. 

“Max. Maximus. My horse,” the boy said haughtily. “Cause he’s the best.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t,” the boy said smugly. “Because I have your glasses.”

With one delicate finger, he held the blue rims out towards Yuuri tauntingly. 

“Those don’t belong to you,” Yuuri said, narrowing his eyes and lowering his voice.

“And you have something that doesn’t belong to you.” The boy flicked his blonde hair out of his face. “Wanna trade?”

“Aren’t you a little young to be hunting down thieves?” Yuuri asked, trying to keep the kid talking long enough for him to figure out the best plan of escape. He could get past the horse easily enough, but horses are far faster than humans, and the trees weren’t dense enough for him to lose them easily. “What are you, like 8?”

“I’m ten!” the kid yelled angrily. 

“Shouldn’t there be adults with you?”

The kid scoffed again. 

“They went after the other two, the ones they can see. I was smarter than that and followed your trail. You’re easy to track.”

“Hmm,” Yuuri replied barely hearing the kid. 

He suddenly sprang forward, grabbing his glasses out of the kid’s still outstretched hand, and racing into the woods but keeping parallel to the cliff side. The kid let out an indignant, “Hey!,” drawing a sword (why did everyone from the palace have swords?), and spurred his horse into the woods after Yuuri. He jammed his glasses back onto his face, scanning through the trees as he ran. If he could just find an area where the cliff side banked slightly…

He changed direction quickly, spotting his opening. A small path, carved into the side of the cliff, steep enough that a horse would fall down, but not so steep that Yuuri couldn’t climb. He made sure the satchel was still secure across his shoulder, then braced himself as he started the descent. 

He spotted the kid and the horse stare down at him in frustration before vanishing from his sight, but he was already a third of the way down the cliff side. 

When Yuuri finally got to the bottom of the cliff, jumping down the last five feet or so and having to roll on impact, he looked around in wonder. He was in the middle of a secluded valley, surrounded on all sides by mountains and cliffs. He saw no easy way into the valley and figured that most people wouldn’t even think about doing what he did, let alone have the motivation to climb down such a rugged cliff side. 

It was beautiful though. Snow littered the ground, touched only by the footprints of small animals, and a frozen stream snaked its way from one end of the valley to the other. 

And right in the middle of the whole time stood a tower. 

Yuuri wasn’t surprised, there were remnants of old castles and villages scattered throughout the kingdom. This one seemed to be in better shape than most, but he figured that was simply because it was so secluded that no one had manage to come pillaging in years. 

Yuuri glanced back up the cliff, wondering how much time he’d have before that kid would find him again. Even in the brief time they’d spoken, he could tell the blonde boy was incredibly stubborn, and if he’d found Yuuri once, he’d probably be able to find him again. With that in mind, Yuuri approached the side of the castle, his eyes immediately picking out a path to the top, finding hand and toes holes. He could definitely make it to the top, but he doubted that the kid would be able to, even if he did manage to find him. Yuuri brushed off his hands and started to climb.

When he finally got to the top, Yuuri swung himself in through the window and immediately looked around the tower in surprise.

 _This place is definitely not abandoned,_ he just had time to think to himself before something cold and hard and metal hit him on the back of his head, sending him tumbling forward into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a bit late, got kinda slammed at college this week, hopefully it won’t happen again! Anyways, just in case y’all were having questions about the ages they are:
> 
> Viktor: (almost) 22  
> Yuuri: 18  
> Chris: 21  
> JJ: 20  
> Yuri(o): 10
> 
> I wanted to keep the podium family’s age gaps like how they are in canon plus I can’t resist writing sassy 10 year old Yurio with his embarrassing dads, but I needed the others ages around what I’m putting them as, so yeah, half the age gaps are canon, half aren’t, idk what I’m doing.
> 
> I honestly couldn’t think of anyone in YOI that I would want to make actually evil (like I explained before, the character of the witch is up to individual interpretation), so Chris and JJ are acting as the brothers in that they are essentially the same plot device, but have very different motivations and personalities. Chris needs the money cause his boyfriend is sick, JJ needs the money cause he wants to propose to Isabela but he’s poor af and thinks her dad would reject him, and Yuuri needs to money to help save his family’s inn. I’m gonna write this stuff in later (maybe) for those who don’t read the ANs but yeah that’s what’s happening right now. 
> 
> If you have any questions or concerns or catch any of my grammar mess ups because I type too fast and don’t proofread, feel free to tell me in the comments!!!


	4. Chapter 3: Leap

Viktor shrieked and dropped the frying pan. 

He’d noticed the man approaching the tower almost immediately, the dark figure standing out starkly against the white of the fresh afternoon snow. For a few moments, he thought it might have been his mother returning for their daily supper, but it was far too early for her to return, over an hour or so. Viktor held his breath as the figure approached the tower, hoping that he’d just keep on walking past, and panicking as he started to climb the side before rushing around looking for something to defend himself with. He grabbed the closest thing to him, the frying pan that he’d gotten out to start dinner and pressed himself close to the side of the window, out of view of the intruder. 

The man had just climbed in through the window when Viktor swung the frying pan. It hit the man in the back of his head, and he dropped hard to the ground face first. Viktor screamed and dropped the pan on impulse, leaping back and up into the air, dangling a few feet off the ground by his hair. He half expected the man on the floor to get up and attack him. 

But the stranger stayed down, crumpled uncomfortably on the floor. Viktor slowly lowered himself to the floor, picking up the frying pan as Makkachin growled softly at the man on the floor. Carefully, Viktor poked the man with the edge of the pan, once more leaping back in anticipation. 

Still, the man lay passed out on the floor. 

Taking a deep breath and gathering his courage, Viktor stepped forward once more and flipped the man over to get a better look at the stranger who climbed in through his window.

Viktor cocked his head in curiosity, entranced by the man who lay before him. Even unconscious on the hard stone, Viktor could tell that he was…beautiful. The man, well, boy really, looked so much different than himself, so much younger, with softer, rounded features and a mop of slicked-back black hair against pale skin, whitened and pink from the cold. He wore a deep black winter cloak with a blood red lining over a black lace-up tunic, with a pair of blue glasses perched lightly on his nose in a way that should have marred the boy’s beauty but instead provided a brilliant contrast between dark beauty and soft cuteness. Snowflakes gripped the black fabric and black hair, shimmering like crystals.

Yes. Beautiful.

Makkachin had stopped growling, instead padding over and giving the boy a once over before licking his face.

“Makkachin!” Viktor hissed in horror, expecting the boy to wake up. 

But he continued to lie dead to the world.

Viktor let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Letting his curiosity get the better of him, Viktor slipped the one thing that didn’t match the rest of the boy’s ensemble off of his shoulder: a beat up, dirty brown satchel. 

It contained mostly items common to all travelers: some dried fruits and nuts, a wineskin, some rope, a small knife. But Viktor was most curious about the final two items, neither of which seemed to fit with the rest of the supplies: a crumpled sheet of paper and what looked like a fancy, narrow pie tin without a bottom. Viktor uncrumpled the paper, smoothing it out to better read it. 

It was a wanted poster. A wanted poster of the man who was currently lying unconscious on Viktor’s floor. (Admittedly, the glasses were drawn completely wrong, but the face, the slicked back hair, they were similar enough for Viktor to see the resemblance). There was a man wanted by the authorities lying on his floor, a criminal who could wake up at any time. 

Viktor dropped the paper, letting it flutter softly to the floor, and quickly grabbed for his frying pan. Keeping a tight grip on it, he kept one eye on the boy on his floor as he searched around for something to contain him. Viktor finally decided on the empty wardrobe on the opposite side of the room. Technically, he was supposed to hang his clothes in it, but they were mostly strewn across the floor of his bedroom, sometimes folded in piles if he got particularly bored. 

The boy was smaller than Viktor was, so it wasn’t difficult for him to drag the other man over to the wardrobe. It took a bit of finagling to keep the doors closed, what with a limp body lying against them and everything. Viktor finally shoved a chair under the handles to keep it shut after the boy fell out of on top of him, knocking Viktor to the ground. 

(If he let the boy lie on top of him a moment too long, no one needed to know). 

Once he was sure the doors were staying shut, Viktor stepped back to admire his work. He let out a nervous laugh, dropping down to kneel next to Makkachin, who’d been watching the whole process with a lazy curiosity. 

“I have a person in my closet,” Viktor said, slightly in awe of everything that had happened.

He lept up in excitement. 

“Makkachin, I have a person in my closet!”

He laughed again, flipping the frying pan around.

“Can’t handle myself, Mother? Outside world too dangerous? Tell that to my frying pan. Ow!”

The last part was because he’d hit himself in the head with the pan by accident. 

Rubbing his now-bruised head with his palm, Viktor turned back towards the satchel, fishing on the not-quite-a-pie-tin thing that he found in it. 

It was light and dainty, a few strands of gleaming silver entwined intricately around each other, with the outside of the circlet dotted with white diamonds and deep blue sapphires. In one spot, the bands of silver bent, curving downward to frame one large, tear-dropped shaped sapphire that was more brilliant than all the other gems combined. 

Viktor studied the silver circle, feeling an itch at the back of his head, like something he couldn’t quite remember but knew he should. 

Probably just his skull trying to heal itself from when he’d whacked it.

Still…

He wandered over to the mirror that sat besides the wardrobe, remembering something from an old story he’d read when he was younger. The book had accidentally gotten destroyed when the roof leaked on one particularly stormy day, but there was an illustration in it that Viktor could never get out of his head. 

Viktor glanced at the circlet he held in his hands in the mirror, looking towards it and then back at himself, feeling silly for his reprehension. Shaking his head, he held the circlet sideways and placed it gently on top of his head, just like the man in the storybook had done. 

He stared at himself in the mirror, the blue of the sapphires matching the blue of his eyes, the tear-drop landing perfectly in the center of his brow, as if somehow, impossibly, this was made for him. 

“Viktor!!”

His mother’s voice calling from below jolted him out of his trance. 

“Coming!” Viktor yelled back, stuffing the circlet back into the satchel and then throwing the whole thing into an empty pot that held flowers in the spring and summer. 

“I have a surprise for you,” his mother called from below as Viktor struggled to hoist her up. 

“So do I,” he called back down.

“I bet mine’s bigger!”

Viktor smiled to himself, muttering, “I seriously doubt it.”

His mother stepped in through the window, flourishing her basket dramatically as she announced, “I brought your favorite soup for dinner, darling.”

“Thanks,” Viktor said hurriedly, anxious to prove to her that he was able to defend himself. 

“So, about what you said earlier, about how the outside world is too dangerous, and I can’t handle myself, well –”

“Viktor, I hope this is not more nonsense about seeing those stars,” his mother said harshly, all warmth gone from her voice.

“But if you’d just listen, I promise –”

“I said no.”

“But, if you’d just let me show you –”

“Viktor!”

“But –”

He was at the wardrobe now, having edged closer to it, his fingers ready to pull the chair back and reveal what had happened, when his mother yelled, “I said no!”

Her hand flew from her side, and she slapped him hard across the face. 

Viktor was stunned, his hand dropping from the chair and unconsciously raised itself to his cheek, feeling the hot skin when she had slapped him. He looked at her in horror, feeling as if he no longer knew the woman in front of him. They’d had their arguments before, but she’d never been physical with him. This was…this was…he didn’t even have the words for it, his fingers still pressing aimlessly at his slowly swelling cheek. 

His mother sighed, dropping back into a chair and bemoaning, “Great, now I’m the bad guy.”

“I…” Viktor started softly, an idea starting to form in his head, an idea that never would have come to him before today. “I was just going to say, I know what I want for my birthday now.”

His mother simply fixed him with a glare, and he turned his head down to avoid her look. 

“…New paints?” he asked hesitantly, worried she’d deny him even this. “The ones made from those shells that you brought me that one time?”

“Well, Viktor,” she said with a huff, “that is a very long trip. At least three days time.”

 _And that,_ Viktor thought, _is the point._

“I know,” he said, ready to play his last card. “I just thought it was a better idea than the…stars.”

His mother softened at his last concession. 

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll start the journey tonight, while I still have a few hours of sunlight left.”

She walked over to him, giving him a tight embrace that he leaned into, one of her hands stroking the back of his hair lightly like she used to do when he was a child, afraid of the dark.

____________________________________________________________________

Yuuri woke up with a start, feeling something warm and wet in his ear, immediately trying to pull away from the unpleasant sensation, only to find he was tied to a chair by some sort of extremely fine, silver thread.

“Is this…hair?” Yuuri asked aloud, glancing around at his surroundings. “And…a dog?”

It was indeed a dog, a fluffy, curly-brown-furred dog whose tongue had obviously just been stuck in Yuuri’s ear. Gross.

“Who are you?” demanded a male voice from the darkness that surrounded him, the only light coming from a few lanterns that were focused in a circle around his chair. 

“What?” Yuuri asked in confusion to the voice in the darkness.

“I said,” the voice answered, the owner stepping into the light so that Yuuri could see him. “Who are you, and how did you find me?”

For a decent 30 seconds, Yuuri was absolutely stunned. The man before him was breathtakingly gorgeous. He was taller than Yuuri, and better built, with broader shoulders and a sharp jaw-line. His eyes were stunning, a sharp ocean blue that cut straight to Yuuri’s soul. And his hair…

Yuuri had never seen hair that 1) was that incredibly silver, so silver it was almost white, and 2) was So. Freaking. Long. 

“I…uh…” Yuuri still wasn’t able to form actual words, stuck on both the seeming randomness of the questions and the man’s appearance. 

“What do you want with my hair, Eros?” the man demanded. He pronounced it like ee-rus, and Yuuri cringed a bit internally, both at the pronunciation and the fact that clearly this crazy guy in front of him knew who he was. He continued, circling Yuuri and threatening him with…was that a frying pan?, “Steal it? Cut it?”

“One, it’s Eros. It’s from this old song or whatever, it doesn’t matter. Two, the only thing I want to do with your hair, _gekkou_ , is get out of it. Literally.”

The man stopped circling him, jamming the frying pan under Yuuri’s chin like it was a sword or something. His blue eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Did you just call me a lizard?”

Yuuri laughed in spite of the situation. 

“Gekkou. Not gecko. Means –”

The man cut him off, crossing his arms and pouting. 

“I’m not a lizard.”

“I never said you were.”

“And my name’s Viktor.”

“Nice to meet you, Viktor,” Yuuri said, giving him a classic fake smile. “Now if we’ve dispensed with the pleasantries, would you please untie me and me and my satchel –”

Yuuri cut himself off in panic. His satchel. It wasn’t over his shoulder anymore. Had he lost it climbing the tower? No, he was sure it was secured tightly, there was no way it could have just fallen off.

The man, Viktor, uncrossed his arms, putting his hands on his hips in a smug expression.

“If you’re looking for your satchel, I’ve hidden it. Somewhere you’ll never find it.”

Yuuri glanced briefly around the tower, spotting a large pot set next to the window.

“It’s in that flower pot isn’t it?”

There was a flurry of silver movement, and once again, everything went black. 

____________________________________________________________________

Yuuri was sick and tired of waking up to a dog’s tongue in his ear.

He was also sick and tired of getting knocked out.

“Can you stop doing that?!” he yelled as he was once again awakened abruptly. It didn’t even matter which one he was talking to, the man or the dog. The back of his head throbbed, indicating he probably had a minor concussion.

“Now,” Viktor said with a huff, once more crossing his arms, “it’s hidden somewhere you’ll never find it.”

Yuuri groaned, starting to bang his head against the back of the chair in frustration, but stopping immediately when he started to see spots. Yup, definitely a concussion. Wonderful. 

“That is, unless you help me.”

“What?” 

Viktor strolled over to a covered mantle on the other side of the room, pulling back a curtain to display an intricate painting. 

“Do you know what these are?”

Yuuri squinted, tilting his head at an awkward angle to see through his glasses that had slipped to the edge of his nose.

“Yeah, that’s the lantern thing they do every year for the lost prince.”

“I knew it!” Viktor shouted, practically leaping into the air in excitement. “I knew they weren’t stars! I mean, ahem,” he said, trying to collect himself and act intimidating again. Yuuri had to hide a smile. The man was kinda cute. “You are going to take me there.”

“Look, _gekkou_ –” 

“Viktor.”

“Viktor, fine, look, I’m not going back to the castle town. Not for a little while at any rate. Gotta let things, ah, settle down.”

Viktor leaned in close to him, yanking the chair forward so that only his hand was holding Yuuri from toppling onto the floor. His face was so close to Yuuri’s that it wouldn’t have taken any effort for Yuuri to lean forward a couple of inches against his bonds and kiss him. Not that he was thinking about doing that, of course. 

“Listen, Eros,” Viktor hissed, “You can tear this tower apart brick by brick, but without my help, you will never find your precious satchel. Now, do we have a deal?”

He shoved Yuuri’s chair back, glaring at him.

Yuuri sighed, gathering his courage to maintain his persona. 

“Okay, you asked for it,” he said, before giving Viktor what his dance instructor had called “the smolder,” lowering his eyelids to gaze seductively up at Viktor through his eyelashes, slightly licking his lips and crooning, “Wouldn’t it be easier just to let me go?”

Viktor remained immovable. 

Yuuri dropped it, muttering, “Damn, he’s good. Fine,” he said louder, “I’ll take you to see the floating lanterns.”

“Yes!” Viktor cried, this time actually leaping into the air. “Makkachin, we’re heading out!”

He raced up the stairs, forgetting Yuuri was still tied up and causing the chair to spin and fall heavily to the floor on top of Yuuri, the dog, Makkachin, Yuuri assumed, barking happily beside him.  
___________________________________________________________________

Viktor felt a little bad about knocking the boy out so many times, but he figured if it ended up being a problem, he could just heal the damage, no harm done.

If you had to be a klutz, it’s better to be a klutz with magical healing powers. Viktor had learned that from a young age. 

It was still hard to believe he’d actually gotten Eros to agree to take him to see the floating lights. He’d been so excited when the boy had agreed that he’d forgotten he was still attached to the chair, sending the poor kid flying into his floor. Oops. 

He grabbed his cloak, an old birthday present from a few years ago when he’d mentioned to his mother that it got cold in the winter, even with the fire burning, and an old pair of boots she’d given him for when he accidentally would break a glass and have to clean it up so that he wouldn’t cut his feet on the shards. He raced back downstairs and untied the boy, alternating between apologizing and trying to act tough, like he knew what he was doing. He hoped Eros bought it.

Admittedly, Viktor was quite proud of himself for keeping it together as much as he had. When the boy had opened his eyes, Viktor had almost forgotten what he was doing, wanting instead to sit down for hours and paint the boy in front of him in all the rich browns that he rarely saw outside of Makkachin. The boy’s skin had darkened slightly, now that he had been out of the cold for a while, remaining a shade darker than Viktor’s own, with his warm brown eyes somehow bringing out rich chocolate undertones in his black hair. 

Viktor had almost broken when Eros had stared at him with hooded eyes, a shiver running down his spine, but he’d held his ground. 

Now, he stood at the edge of the windowsill, gripping his hair on the hook like a lifeline. Makkachin was already happily barking below, having been sent down using the special pulley system he’d rigged up when Makkachin got too big for his mother to keep carrying up and down when he had to do his business. Eros was steadily climbing down the side of the tower, and once more, Viktor was impressed with the capability of the other man. 

He looked out at the snowscape below him, the familiar trees and mountains, always out of reach, the ground below, covered in snow and ice that he’d never touched. 

Then Viktor let out his breath and jumped. 

____________________________________________________________________

Yuri was not happy. 

First, he’d lost the thief, Eros. 

Then, he’d lost the rest of the guards.

Not necessarily in that order. 

Yuri had no idea where he was, other than somewhere deep in the forest, somewhere he’d never been before. He’d spent what felt like hours scouring the side of the cliff, searching for a way down, but to no avail. Then, he’d tried to find his way back to the main path. When that didn’t work, he wandered around aimlessly, hoping to run into one of the palace guards. 

Suddenly, Yuri heard the sound of footsteps in the forest ahead of him. He reached a hand around to his hip, grasping the hilt of his sword but not yet drawing it, hoping that he’d finally found one of the guards. 

Instead, an old woman came walking out from behind the trees.

Yuri quickly drew his sword.

“Who are you?!” he demanded, not even really knowing what he’d do with the information, trying to remember what the protocol for meeting strangers in the woods was. Was there even a protocol? Yuri couldn’t remember, but he figured furrowing his brow and acting as pissed off as he felt couldn’t hurt. 

The old woman, to her part, looked just as stunned to see him as he was to see her. She glanced him over, then gave Max a once over.

“A child on a palace horse,” she muttered, and Yuri bristled at her calling him a child. “But where are the rest of you?”

Then her eyes widened in fear. 

“The palace guards,” she said to herself. “Viktor.”

And with that, she turned and raced back the way she had come, Yuri calling angrily after her, “I’m not a child! I’m ten years old!”

When she didn’t respond, he gave a huff, motioning Max to keep walking to hopefully somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used to live in Japan, I was actually born there even tho I’m white af (military brat), and one of our old dog’s was named Gekko and it means moonlight in Japanese and I couldn’t resist the “I’m not a lizard” so there you go, instead of blondie, Yuuri calls Viktor Gekkou. 
> 
> Also terribly sorry this is once again late, I keep trying to write a chapter in a week and it keeps not working so let’s go with a new one in a week and a half or so, just to be safe. I’m doing that thing where I’m writing a new fic in my head when I should be writing the one I’m actually working on. Sigh. 
> 
> Again, any mistakes or questions, just let me know! I’m more than happy to talk about aspects of the AU that you might be curious about ☺


	5. Chapter 4: Liberation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT THAT I'M NOT DEAD (more notes at the end about me not being dead)
> 
> Ok so "Previously on L Words":  
> Viktor made Yuuri (pseudonym Eros cause I'm unorignal) take him to see the floating lights. Yurio's 10 and human but has a horse named Max and they're tracking Yuuri. Think that's all you need.

Yuuri couldn’t believe he was stuck being a tour guide for a man who was essentially an overgrown toddler who’d ingested way too much sugar.

Viktor had been alternating between elation and despair, one moment running through the forest, throwing handfuls of snow for his poodle to chase after, the next lying face down in a snow drift, bemoaning what a terrible son he was. Yuuri was exhausted just watching the other man run through his gauntlet of emotions. Even in the brief time he’d known him, Yuuri was sure of one thing: Viktor was a drama queen. 

“Hey, are you okay there, _gekkou_?” Yuuri asked, crouching down next to where Viktor sat huddled on the ground, crying into his knees. 

Viktor sniffed, steadying his voice.

“Yeah, it’s just…it’s just a lot,” he responded as Makkachin butted his head against his side. Viktor softly ran his fingers through the worried dog’s fur to reassure him, Yuuri’s eyes unconsciously following the movement. 

“I’ve…I’ve just never been out of the tower before.”

As irritated as Yuuri was by the whole situation, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for Viktor. He’d never been physically encaged like the other man, but between his natural anxiety and current financial situation, he knew what it was like to be trapped. 

“If you want to go back,” Yuuri began gently.

“No.”

Viktor looked up at him stubbornly, his jaw set in a hard line. Yuuri wondered if he’d reach out to touch him, if Viktor would feel like ice and cut him, or if he’d be warm and soft and human. 

Viktor pushed himself up, brushing snow off his cloak, before standing strongly in front of Yuuri, determination sharpening his eyes. 

“You’re not getting out that easily,” Viktor said. “You will take me to see the floating lights, and then you will escort me safely back to my tower.”

Yuuri laughed, holding his hands out in a mock attempt to ward Viktor off. 

“Alright, alright, just wanted to make sure.”

Yuuri gave Viktor a soft smile, mentally berating himself for letting himself care so much about someone he’d only met a few hours previously. Someone who knew his secret and was essentially blackmailing him. Someone who loved dogs and was surprisingly adept at frying pan combat. Someone who was too damn beautiful for their own good. Someone who’s eyes Yuuri could get lost in, who’s fingers he felt ghosting over his skin…

Yuuri tripped at the surprise of his last thought, falling face first into an ice encrusted tree trunk. 

He groaned at the stab of pain above his eyes, rolling over to lie face up in the snow. He felt something hot and warm trickle over an eyebrow, around his eye, and down the side of his nose. He pressed his sleeve to the cut on his forehead, unsure how deep the icy bark had actually cut him, but grateful that at least the back of his clothes would hide any stains. 

“Oh my god!” Viktor cried, dropping down beside Yuuri. “Are you okay? You were just walking and then you fell and I–”

Yuuri sat up slowly before waving his hands in front of his face, embarrassed. 

“No, no, I’m fine, I’m fine, I just fell a bit and–”

Viktor’s eyes widened as he saw the gash on Yuuri’s forehead.

“No, you’re not fine,” he said in a small voice. “You…you got hurt…”

He reached out as if to touch the wound, then pulled his fingers back abruptly. Yuuri let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, longing for the touch he hadn’t even received. 

Yuuri got up slowly, swaying slightly from the blood rushing to his head. Viktor jumped up, moving as if to steady him, or maybe catch him if he fell. Yuuri waved him off again. 

“Seriously, I’m fine, it’s just a stupid cut, it’ll heal.”

Viktor bit his lip in concern. 

“But…”

“Viktor.” Yuuri said sternly, just as determined as Viktor had been earlier. “I’m fine. Now let’s go get you to see those damn lanterns so I can get my satchel back and we can all go home.”

“But it could be infected! Or you could bleed out! Or pass out from blood loss! It looks pretty deep, and you don’t know what sort of stuff was on that tree and—”

Yuuri cut him off before the other man gave him an even worse headache.

“Okay, okay!” He sighed, knowing the fears about blood loss were unsubstantiated, even if his glasses were blood-slicked enough to be sliding down his nose by now. But infection… “I know a place, nearby, that has a healer. It’s safe,” he responded to Viktor’s suspicious look, “he’s an old friend. And it’s on the way to town.”

Viktor brightened immediately, grabbing Yuuri’s hand and pulling him along. 

“Then let’s go! I can’t have my guide dying on me now.”

“Viktor, we’re going the wrong way!”  
____________________________________________________________________

Viktor felt guilty.

There was no reason for him to feel guilty, he knew that. But still…

When he saw the gash on Eros’s forehead, a bloody mar on otherwise flawless skin, he wanted to heal it. The blood splashed on the white snow, blood dripping down the man’s white face…it was too much. He’d reached out, ready to fix this, ready to brush his fingers over the wound and make it whole and beautiful again…

But he couldn’t. He pulled back at the last minute, self-preservation instincts too strong. He was, and always had been, a selfish boy, just as his mother had always told him when he was too slow to pull her up, when he took too much time before singing for her, when he and Makkachin played too long and he forgot his chores. He was selfish, too selfish, caring more for his own safety and secrets than for the bleeding man in front of him. 

He pushed these thoughts away as Eros led him from the woods, down a path towards a slightly run down building, a peeling sign labeled “The Three Hamsters” hanging outside.

“The Three Hamsters?” Viktor asked. It was certainly an unusual name.

Eros sighed. “Phic—, ah, the owner, he really likes hamsters. Took the name from one of those old stories about three pigs or bears or mice or something. Anyways, be careful where you step, he doesn’t always keep track of the critters. I’ve almost stepped on a hamster more than once here.”

The interior of the bar (Bar? Tavern? What even was the difference? Viktor had no idea, but clearly, the place served alcohol) wasn’t much better than the exterior. It was dimly lit, daylight filtering through dirty windows, helped only by a few stubby candles here and there. Although it was fairly deserted, with only a few customers here and there, the few people Viktor did see were hardened and grimy. Many looked like they hadn’t had a bath in months, and all looked wary at his entrance, a few moving their hands to their belts where they no doubt kept concealed knives. The whole place smelled vaguely like sawdust and hamsters, with dozens of the tiny animals darting across the floor, sleeping on tables and chairs, and even drinking out of the cup of a man slumped over the counter of the bar, clearly passed out. 

“That’s a lot of hair,” one of the patrons said in a stupor, running his hand through a bit before Viktor could stop him. Viktor clenched his frying pan tighter, struggling to hold onto it and the armfuls of hair he had gathered in an attempt to keep it under control. Makkachin trotted by his side loyally, growling at anyone who looked at Viktor for too long. 

Eros, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at home, even smiling to a few people and giving some a small headshake that Viktor had no idea what it meant. He approached the bar with ease, giving a small knock against the top of the hard wood. Another black haired man popped up from behind the counter, saying, “Welcome to the Three Hamsters, how can I…,” before trailing off when he saw Eros, his eyes widening. 

The man let out a delighted shriek, racing from behind the counter to envelop Eros in a crushing hug, rambling madly in a language Viktor didn’t recognize. 

(If Viktor was jealous of the hug, the type he’d never gotten, only given, he didn’t let on). 

Viktor expected Eros to pull back. From what he’d seen, the other man wasn’t exactly the touchy type. Instead, Eros returned the hug, even relaxing into it while he replied to the other man in the same language. Maybe he was a relative, with Eros and the other man sharing similar hair colors (although Viktor noticed the other man’s housed a hamster) and eye shapes, although Eros’s eyes were more of a warm brown with hints of red and maroon, while the other man’s were a deep gray and his coloring was much darker than Eros’s fair skin, only a shade darker than Viktor’s own. Maybe he was just a good friend. Or maybe…he was a partner. 

Viktor’s stomach clenched at the thought of his last hypothesis, but then he chastised himself. He had no right to feel…however he felt towards Eros. He had no claim to him. Viktor was just using the other man as a means to an ends, just as a guide, albeit a gorgeous one. One whose rare smiles held more warmth in them than Viktor had ever known. One whose hair Viktor longed to run his fingers through, wondering how the short strands would feel, if they’d be silky like his own, or soft like Makkachin. One whose lips Viktor kept unwillingly staring at, one whose laugh Viktor couldn’t stop thinking about, a laugh so free and honest that Viktor would do anything to hear it again…

“Viktor, this is Phichit, the healer I told you about,” Eros said, jolting Viktor out of his thoughts. “Phichit, this is Viktor. He’s a…friend.”

“Hi Viktor, I’m Phichit Chulanont,” the man, Phichit, said quickly, speaking just as quickly in English as he had in the other language, grabbing Viktor’s hand and shaking it vehemently. “Yu-Eros told me that you two are going to the lantern festival. Don’t worry, I’ll just get my kit real fast from the back to patch Eros up and then you two can be on your way! The festival is great, I’ve been myself, can’t go this year because I can’t afford to close the bar, but I managed to go a few years ago. Wish I was a better artist, I would have liked to capture some of it, but I suppose stories are better than nothing! Anyways, you sit tight and I’ll be right back!”

He snatched the hamster off the top of his head where it was chewing on his hair, thrust it into Viktor’s hands and raced off as quickly as he had spoken, leaving Viktor standing in stunned silence, still holding the hamster. 

Eros smiled at his bewilderment. 

“Sorry about Phichit,” he said abashed, running a hand through his hair. “He can be a bit…overwhelming.”

“You don’t say,” Viktor said, gently placing the hamster on the countertop, where it then sniffed around in curiosity before finding a worn coaster to gnaw on. 

“He’s always been that way,” Eros said fondly, Viktor’s stomach knotting itself up once more.

“You’ve known him for long, then?” Viktor asked, trying to keep his voice naturally curious. 

“Since we were kids. He’s a good friend to have, knows a bit about everything. Loyal too,” Eros said. “He’s a total gossip monger, has to know everything about everyone, but if you’ve got a secret, he’ll take it to his grave.”

Phichit came bustling back in, a wooden box Viktor assumed was the medical kit in his hands. 

“So,” Phichit said scoldingly. “How exactly did you manage to cut yourself? I swear, if you got went up against someone with a blade–”

“He tripped,” Viktor said happily, pleased to have something to contribute to the conversation.

“Viktor!”

“And hit his head on a tree.”

Phichit cracked a smile at that. 

“You always have been clumsy, haven’t you? Notorious thief Eros, one of the most wanted in the kingdom, almost is his own undoing because of a tree. Speaking of, where’s the other two, what are they calling themselves, the King and the Assman?”

Viktor snorted at that last bit, trying to cover a laugh. Phichit looked at him with a glimmer in his eyes, none of the threesome noticing the stranger that darted out of the bar at the sound of Phichit’s last comment. 

Eros sighed, wincing slightly as Phichit applied a damn cloth to his forehead, dabbing at the wound and cleaning up the dried blood. 

“We got separated after the, ah, thing. I lost our, ah, friends in the woods and wasn’t able to make my way back.”

“And your…fish?”

“My what?”

“You know, your…catch. The thing you were meeting for?”

“Oh. Lost, somewhere along the way. Viktor said he’d help me look for it, as long as I took him to the festival first.”

Viktor was barely following the conversation, unsure if the men were trying to keep him specifically out of the conversation or simply any unwanted ears. Either way, he suspected they were talking about the fancy circlet Viktor had found in the satchel, but why Eros was keeping Viktor’s true involvement secret, he couldn’t guess. 

“Well I can help you look!” Phichit said. “You don’t need to waste time going to the festival just for him. No offense,” he said to Viktor as an after though. 

Viktor’s stomach dropped. If Eros decided to go search the tower with Phichit and who knows how many others, they might actually tear it apart, not only finding the satchel and preventing Viktor from ever seeing the floating lights, but also making it impossible for him to pretend that he’d never left. The trouble he’d be in with his mother…

“No, that’s okay,” Eros said, and Viktor could suddenly breathe again. “I know you can’t afford to close the bar for that long.”

Viktor thought that would be that, but Phichit abruptly whirled on him, brandishing a jar of salve that he was in the middle of applying to the cut on Eros’s forehead. 

“How dare you!” Phichit shouted, starling to whole of the bar into a stunned silence and bring the three of them into everyone’s attention. “How dare you not be a decent human being and help him look right there and then! How dare you be so selfish!”

“Phichit, it’s,” Eros tried to protest, his quiet voice lost in the murmur of the bar, many offering their agreements.

“Because I had a dream, okay?” Viktor yelled back, all the stress and uncertainty and lord knows how many other emotions breaking out of him. Makkachin licked his hand in assurance, but Viktor didn’t let himself be calmed. “Because all my life, all I’ve wanted is to see those floating lights, and all my life, Mother said no, and then I met Eros, and he said he’d take me, and черт возьми, haven’t you, any of you, ever had a dream?”

Silence. Then–

“I want Anya to love me again!” cried a voice from the back.

“I want to protect my sister!”

“I want to escape my brother’s over-protectiveness,”

“Sara!”

A pair of siblings near the front, the boy glaring at his sister.

“I want to learn how to fight!” piped a small voice, coming from a small boy no older than 12, sitting next to his friend, who then said, “I’ve always had dreams of being a musician.”

“I want to make my country proud,” said another boy, his jaw set firmly, his eyes much older than his age. 

Viktor turned and glared at Phichit, who sighed and said, “I always dreamed of teaching the hamsters to tap dance.”

Everyone stared at him.

“What?”

Then Viktor looked at Eros, who was staring at Viktor strangely. The question was unsaid, but still heard.

“To dance,” Eros said quietly, almost so quiet that Viktor didn’t hear. 

Viktor sighed, his point made, steadying himself. 

“I know it was selfish. I know. But I’m almost 22 and…and Eros finally gave me the opportunity. I had to follow my dream.”

Viktor looked at Phichit pleadingly, recognizing that despite Eros’s agreement to continue to guide him, Phichit could no doubt put an end to it all. Viktor had only read about friendships that strong, but all the stories told about pairs that would do anything to protect the other. And if Phichit and Eros were lovers…

“Fine,” Phichit said, his shoulders dropping from their previously defensive position they held as soon as Viktor had raised his voice. “But if afterwards, Eros says you didn’t come through, I will hunt you down.”

Viktor smiled in thanks, then dropped it as he noticed Phichit’s eyes catch on something in the window behind him. Phichit said something Viktor was pretty sure was a curse in the other language, grabbing Viktor and Eros without warning and shoving them behind the bar. 

“Phichit, what—” Eros squeaked, quietly hushed by Phichit.

“Soldiers,” Phichit whispered under his breath. “Someone must have…damn it, I said you were the thief Eros earlier when I was teasing you, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault, someone must have been listening in and–”

Eros’s eyes widened in fear. 

“Phichit, you have to get me out of here! You know what would happen if they caught me.”

Surprisingly, Phichit smiled. 

“Good thing I got Mari to fix this place up with a little something special then, huh?”

With that, Phichit pulled aside a rug covering the floor behind the bar, revealing a trapdoor with a hamster symbol painted on it. He pulled a lever disguised as a tap, and the door slowly opened, lowering itself into a ramp. 

“Say what you will about your sister, but she knows her stuff. It comes out at the usual spot.”

Before Viktor could ask, Eros gave Phichit a quick hug, muttering, “Thank you,” before descending into the tunnel, pulling Viktor behind him. Phichit quickly pressed the jar of salve into Eros’s hands, saying, “If it get irritated, apply more of this. It’s not deep enough that you’d need stitches, but still keep it dry just in case.” He added something in the other language that Viktor didn’t understand, before turning to Viktor.

“Keep him safe.”

Viktor’s eyes widened in surprise. No one had ever trusted him like this before, no one had ever thought he was the one to do the protecting. He was always the one being protected. But Viktor nodded seriously, gesturing Makkachin to follow him as he and Eros descended into the tunnel, the door shutting above them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. My. God.
> 
> I am so sorry this is so late. First I was sick, then I had midterms, then I had writers block, then Breath of the Wild came out, then I was playing Portal, then I had more essays. Basically, I'm on reading week now before finals next week and then I'll be done for the summer so hopefully we're back to regular updates? If I don't get awful writer's block again???
> 
> Also the Russian in this chapter translates to Damn it
> 
> As always, tell me about any spelling/grammar/inconsistency mistakes!


	6. Chapter 5: Learning

Yuri was lost. And hungry. And tired. 

Not only had he failed to find either the loser thief Eros or his partners or even Yakov and the rest of the guards, but he also couldn’t find his way out of this blasted forest! Yakov would probably yell at him for hours, and there was no way his grandfather would let him go on a mission for at least a couple more months after this. Yuri sighed, resigning himself to the boredom and monotony of wooden practice swords and unimpressive village fighters. 

“Come on, Max,” he whined, not even bothering to steer at this point. What was the use? He had no idea where he was, so he kept just enough tension in the reigns that if Max spooked (not that he would, Max was the best, after all) he could control the horse, and closing his bottom legs when Max’s respective shoulder went back just enough to keep a decent working walk. 

Just as Yuri was about to say for what had to be the hundredth time, “We’ll find something eventually,” the eventually indeed was found. He spotted a small tendril of smoke snaking its way above the trees. Smoke meant people and although people usually meant being bored and annoyed and lectures, this time, it meant directions. And maybe food. 

Working Max gently into a trot, Yuri headed towards the smoke, hoping to at least find someone competent enough to give him half decent directions back to the castle. 

What he was not expecting was a good portion of the soldiers he set out with to be surrounding a run-down tavern. Nor was he expecting to be attacked by an army of hamsters.  
____________________________________________________________________

Viktor was glad for the lanterns lining the tunnel wall, although he admitted to having no idea how they stayed lit. But as long as he wasn’t traveling in complete darkness, he wasn’t going to complain. Plus, it was nice to be guarded from the elements by something a bit more substantial than a frying pan for a while. He’d never imagined just how cold it could be outside his tower. 

“So,” he said amicably, trying to start conversation with the currently silent man walking beside him, Makkachin happily padding between the two, his excited pants the only noise in the tunnel besides their echoing footsteps. “Phichit said your sister built this thing?”

Eros laughed at that, not quite the untethered, joyful laugh of before, but still enough to make Viktor smile. 

“No, no,” he said, “these tunnels have been here for ages. They stretch all through the kingdom. We found them when we were playing as kids, actually. My sister probably just build the door mechanism. She always was good at building things,” he said with a wistful smile.

“What’s her name?” Viktor asked curiously. 

Eros looked at him hard for a moment, then looked away abruptly. 

“I don’t think I should…”

“Eros,” Viktor said. “I live in a doorless tower with my dog. Who am I going to tell?”

He spread his hands wide at the thought, giving a mirthless laugh and ignoring the trickle of resentment and dread in his chest. 

For a minute, Viktor thought Eros wasn’t going to respond. Then,

“Mari.”

Eros said it so softly, Viktor almost missed the name.

“Her name’s Mari.”

“Older or younger?”

“Older. By a few years. She works, or worked at least, I don’t know anymore, with my family in our inn.”

“You miss them, don’t you?” Viktor said quietly, his usual lightheartedness gone. 

Eros sighed. 

“Yeah. I mean, wouldn’t anyone?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes longer, before Viktor continued,

“I mean, it’s always just been me and Mother, before Makkachin came along a few years ago.”

Eros laughed, the laughter noticeably freer and lighter than before. 

He cleared his throat, apologizing, “Sorry, sorry just from the way you said it, it was like he was your son or something.”

Viktor smiled delightedly in response, bending down to coo at Makkachin, “Well, he might as well be, aren’t you boy? That’s right, who’s my good boy, you are, you’re my little Собачка.”

Makkachin jumped forward and licked Viktor’s face, causing him to almost fall backwards, laughing. He smiled up at Eros, who was looking down at the silly man and his dog in something that Viktor almost dared to believe was affection. His heart gave a small leap before he pushed down the feeling, standing back up and continuing along the tunnel.

The two travelled again in what this time was a more comfortable silence, before Eros asked, “That was Russian, right? What you just called Makkachin? And you used it again back at Phichit’s…”

Viktor sighed, gently pulling at his hair from where it had gotten stuck around a corner.

“That’s what Mother calls it, at least. But, she doesn’t like me using it.”

“Why not?” Eros asked, genuinely curious.

Viktor looked down, kicking at a loose rock in the tunnel.

“She…she won’t tell me. I think it has something to do with my father, but every time I ask, she refuses to talk about it. I mean, I know I have a father,” he said with a small smile, “it’s just that she won’t talk about him. I think something happened, either he died or left us or something, but she’s always hated me using Russian. I don’t even realize I’m doing it half the time, but I think my father must have spoken it to me or something. But that’s why she’s so…protective.”

“I’m sorry,” Eros said, not with pity in his eyes, simply sympathy. 

“Me too.”

Viktor didn’t let the silence last long, eager to change the subject.

“But tell me about your family! I mean, you know all about mine, what with me and Mother and Makkachin. But you said you had a sister? Who else? And an inn? And how do you know Phichit?”

Eros smiled, light in his brown eyes that made the reflection of the lanterns on the walls dance.

“You never run out of questions, do you?”

“Nope!” Viktor said jovially. 

“Well, there’s Mari, and my mom and dad, some distant relatives, a sort of surrogate aunt, a few childhood friends…Just kind of your typical family I guess.”

“What about Phichit?” asked Viktor, trying to act nonchalant. “Is he like your boyfriend or something?”

Eros squeaked, his face immediately flushing in a way Viktor _totally_ didn’t think was absolutely adorable. He should his head so fast, Viktor was worried his glasses would fall off his face or he’d reopen the gash on his forehead.

“No no no, he’s just a friend!”

“So you’ve never courted?”

“No, that’d be weird, he’s like a cousin or a brother to me!”

Viktor tried not to let his pleased humming become audible.

“So have you ever courted anyone, then?

Eros’s blush deepened.

“No, I mean, I was always busy with the inn and recently, well, not a whole lot of room for that sort of thing. Plus, I doubt anyone would be interested in me, even if I wasn’t currently…in my line of work. No one wants to court the fat, ugly failing innkeeper’s son who can’t even see properly.”

Viktor’s stomach dropped at hearing Eros call himself anything other than beautiful. And he was surprised to see such a stark difference between the normally confident, almost cocky man he’d probably given a concussion and this anxious boy in the tunnel. Before he could argue that Eros was not only beautiful but also adorable and entrancing, a realization dawned on Viktor.

“That’s why you started stealing, wasn’t it?” he asked as Eros looked up at him with wide, vulnerable eyes. “To help you family? Help your inn?”

Eros sighed dejectedly, turning away in shame.

“Yeah. I…I tried everything else, but no normal job is enough to help an inn in a town no one visits anymore, well except dignitaries, but they stay in the castle.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose even though they hadn’t slipped down. “My parents couldn’t pay the debts and…unless we wanted to be on the streets…I figured it was either this or…”

He trailed off, clearly expecting Viktor to understand.

Viktor didn’t.

“Or what?”

Eros huffed, irritation quickly masking his vulnerability.

“Or selling myself, okay?”

“You mean…oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

It was Viktor’s turn to apologize. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Eros laughed heartlessly. “We all can’t have a cushy tower to go running back to.”

He immediately clamped a hand over his mouth. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean – ”

Viktor waved him off. 

“So you’ve been a thief…?”

“Since I was 15. I joined up with two others about a year ago, the two Phichit mentioned?” Eros flushed, refusing to say the names Phichit had said. “We were all in the game for the same reasons. Kind of. One of them needs money so he can marry the girl he loves, the other, well, his husband is sick, and healers can be expensive so…”

Viktor waited for him to continue, not wanting to push Eros farther than he was willing.

“We worked together for a while, planning a few heists, stealing from rich diplomats who came to the castle and the people we knew could afford to lose a bit here and there. But splitting the gains between three people, especially with the current black market selling prices…well it was taking too long. The inn in barely staying afloat, Ch— his husband is getting worse, and the girl has gotten marriage proposals from others. We were all running out of time. So we decided to go for the big one, all or nothing.”

“That metal circle thing in your satchel.”

Eros nodded in confirmation.

“It’s technically the crown of the prince, but yeah. With what we’d get for it, well, we’d be set for life.”

Viktor was confused. 

“But, doesn’t the prince need it? That type of thing can’t be easily replaced, even for royalty.”

Eros shook his head.

“It’s more kept as a sort of memorial. The prince disappeared about 20 years ago when he was a toddler. By now, he’s most likely dead. Still, we didn’t want to give the king and queen more grief, so it was always a last resort, but between that or our families…the choice wasn’t easy, but it was clear.”

“And the other two you were travelling with?” Viktor asked, concerned.

Eros looked panicked at this.

“I…I don’t know. We got separated in the forest, chased by the castle army and…”

“Hey,” Viktor said firmly, laying a reassuring hand on Eros’s shoulder, trying not to pay attention to the warmth he felt even with the thick travelling cloak. “They’ll be okay.”

“But what if they got caught?” Eros cried, his panicked voice echoing down the tunnel, tears in the corners of his eyes. “What if –”

“Mother will be gone for three days,” Viktor confidently interrupted. “I have an extra day before I need to be back, I’ll help you find them.”

Eros looked at him with trembling eyes, his bottom lip wavering, before abruptly throwing his arms around Viktor’s neck, hugging the other man tightly while repeating, “Thank you, thank you so much.”

Viktor let out a small gasp, standing frozen for a grand total of 0.5 seconds, before allowing his arms to encircle the smaller man, pulling him closer and leaning his head against Eros’s shoulder. Just in comfort. Just in purely platonic comfort of two friends, or person-one-was-blackmailing-with-and-maybe-threatening-with-a-frying-pan. Nothing more.

After a few seconds, Eros pulled back, clearly embarrassed at the physical show of emotion. Viktor ached at the loss, yearning for the warmth and comfort from another human that he hadn’t gotten in year. Eros quickly strode down the tunnel, leaving Viktor staring after him (definitely, definitely _not_ lovestruck), smiling before following the other man out into the sunshine beyond.  
____________________________________________________________________

“Army” and “attacked” were probably too strong of words, but any amount of chittering hamsters that were enough to make Max nervous was too many hamsters. 

“What the hell is going on here?” demanded Yuri, not even bothering to dismount outside, instead barging straight through the tavern doors, much to the dismay of the soldiers outside and surprise of the aforementioned hamsters. 

One of the lower ranking commanders who was questioning a man Yuri took to be the tavern’s owner turned to Yuri in surprise. Others seemed shocked to hear vulgarity from the mouth of someone so young, but between the steel in Yuri’s eyes, his arms crossed over his chest, and the fact that he still sat on a white stallion even indoors, they decided it was safer not to comment. There were whispers from some of the surrounding soldiers:

“Hey, isn’t that Plisetsky’s kid?”

“Did the High Constable really let him come?”

“I thought we lost him.”

“No, he looks too young.” (Yuri shot a death glare at that one. He was not too young, he was ten, damnit!)

“Nah, that’s him, I know his grandfather.”

Then a voice Yuri (unfortunately) recognized broke through the crowd.

“Yuuuuurrriiiii, it’s youuuuu…”

Yuri cringed and rolled his eyes as a very drunk Georgi tried to drape himself over Max, only succeeding in spilling the contents of his bottle on the floor, to which a scurry of hamsters quickly lapped up.

“What the hell are you doing here, Popovich?” Yuri asked the older man distastefully. Sometimes when Mila was busy, he’d get matched with Georgi for sparring. Even though they weren’t close in height, their sword skills were about the same, though Yuri not-so-secretely believed his were better.

“I had the week off,” Georgi slurred, going to take a drink from his bottle, only to scowl as he realized it was empty. 

Yuri sighed. 

“Did Anya dump you again?”

“Noooo,” Georgi denied, unconvincingly covering a hiccup. “She just said I was lame and she found someone else and din’t want anything to do with me. But I’ll win her back! Cause we’re in loveee…”

He brandished his bottle like a broadsword and he was calling soldiers to arms. Yuri sighed again. Adults were useless.

“You,” he said, pointing at a random soldier. “Take him back to the castle and sober him up. Call in Yakov if you need to. He knows how to deal with this idiot.”

The soldier nodded, stunned at the authority the 10-year-old wielded, but not wanting to be the one to question it. 

Now that that idiot was sorted, Yuri noticed that Max was still unsettled, which was strange because the hamsters had stopped crowding him once they realized that a 6-ounce animal rarely wins against a thousand pound one. Yuri dismounted smoothly, looking Max in the eye and petting his forehead calmly. 

“What’s wrong, buddy?” Yuri asked gently.

Max snorted in irritation, and Yuri instantly understood. He snapped his head over his shoulder to glare at the commander who was still questioning the denying owner. 

“Eros. He was here.”

It wasn’t a question. 

The commanded nodded in surprise (the incompetent fool, didn’t anyone around here know who the hell he was), and Yuri turned back to Max, giving a snap of his fingers to indicate he was allowed to search.

Disregarding the furniture, Max pushed his way closer to the bar, knocking over tables, chairs, and people indiscriminatingly. (Yuri thought he heard a cry of, “Keep your hands off my sister, you dirty horse,” but that was such a weird idea that he decided he probably just misheard things in his hungry state.) At the opening to the backside of the bar, Max halted, huffing and stamping his front hoof. Yuri hurried over to investigate, noticing a strangely out of place rug in the middle of the floor. Pulling it aside, he noticed a pattern in the boards that clearly indicated a trap door. 

Stepping back slowly, Yuri approached the commander and owner carefully, before quickly drawing his sword and placing it at the civilian’s throat. 

“Someone break down that door in the floor,” Yuri called, never taking his eyes off the other man. Despite the height and years he had on Yuri, Yuri knew that a sword at the throat greatly placed the odds in his favor. 

“Now!” Yuri barked in a perfect imitation of Yakov as no one moved. “Every second that you waste is another second that Eros could get away.”

With that, there was a scurry of movement as the soldiers broke down the door, revealing the secret tunnel that lied beneath. Yuri smirked, pressing the tip of his sword slightly into the owner’s throat. 

“And you,” he said, “are going to tell me where that tunnel lets out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god so this chapter was originally also gonna include the fight in the gorge but it's long af as it is and it's finals week and I had this much done so YAY yall get a chapter earlier plus this story has been extended by a chapter.
> 
> If you can't tell, I ride horses. I do not speak Russian (this one is supposed to just be Russian for "doggie"). I do not sword fight. I am not an angry ten year old trying to lead an army. But I know how to ride. 
> 
> Again, as always, any questions/comments/concerns are always appreciated (especially if you spot grammar mistakes because I think my brain is bleeding after studying for my German final). 
> 
> Hope my inclusion of the backstories wasn't too boring
> 
> ALSO! I know a lot of people, myself included, find a lot of fics because of the tags, so if you think I need to add any tags, just let me know!!!


	7. Chapter 6: Luck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO'S BACK FROM THE DEAD IT'S ME sorry it's been so long I legit have no excuses
> 
> I guess trigger warning for mild claustrophobia? I guess? Idk it’s not legit and not researched at all, I’m just drawing from Disney clichés cause that’s what this train wreck of a fic is. Let me know if I need trigger warnings in the tags or anything, I don’t want to hurt anyone just cause I’m an idiot
> 
> As always, enjoy the gay

As soon as Yuuri stepped into the sun, he heard an all to familiar sound behind him: the thunderous stomping of dozens of feet, the sound amplified from the echo of the tunnel behind him and the gorge ahead. Yuuri glanced behind quickly into the tunnel, cursing under his breath as he saw the flicker of torchlight, still many, many yards away, but closer than he’d have liked. 

(He’d have liked them to be as close as the sun was to the moon, but he’d also take a few kingdoms away if he had to. Unfortunately, neither seemed to be an option.)

“What is that?” Viktor asked, slowing down even as Yuuri was speeding up, looking behind him into the tunnel in confusion, even as Makkachin ran ahead with an excited “boof!” which Yuuri took to mean, “Yay! We’re running now!” 

“Bad news,” Yuuri said gravely, grabbing Viktor by the sleeve of his tunic and dragging him forward. “Come on, we’ve got to move, and we’ve got to move fast.”

“But who are they?” Viktor asked, still far too curious for his own good, lagging behind to keep looking as Yuuri pulled harder at his shirt.

“Soldiers. I don’t know. They don’t like me.”

With that, the two sprinted forward, Viktor gathering as much as his hair in his arms so that neither would trip over it. Yuuri knew that the path they were running along would eventually start snaking down the side of the gorge. If they could just get to the ground level, he could lose the soldiers in any one of the tunnels that led into the woods by the castle. There were enough branches and enough exits that no one would know where they had gone. If they could just get to the bottom…

Yuuri skidded to a halt, throwing an arm in front of Viktor as more soldiers started pouring out of one of the other tunnels right in front of them. He cursed again, turning in a quick circle to assess their options, pushing Viktor behind him against the side of the gorge and keeping his arm protectively in front of the other man. 

“Who are they?” Viktor asked, slight panic edging his voice.

“They don’t like me either!”

“Who are they?!”

Yuuri looked to where Viktor was pointing, thinking that if there was one more set of soldiers, he was probably going to go into an anxiety attack right then and there, but instead…

“Assholes,” Yuuri sighed in relief. “Stupid, idiotic assholes with surprisingly wonderful timing.”

Because there at the bottom of the gorge, waving frantically, were Chris and JJ. 

Taking a deep breath, Yuuri assessed the situation, taking in the positions of both groups of soldiers and his friends. 

“Get down to them,” Yuuri told Viktor, his voice deadly calm. 

“What?” Viktor asked incredulously, his eyes wide and overwhelmed.

“Wrap your hair around that pipe there,” Yuuri said, pointing to one of the multiple pipes that ran through the gorge, acting as a sort of aqueduct system to transport water from nearby lakes to the castle town, cleaning it on the way. “Grab Makkachin and swing down to Chris and JJ, they know the way out and can help us outrun the soldiers.”

“But what about you?” Viktor protested. 

Yuuri smiled wryly. “Don’t worry about me. If something happens, they’ll keep you safe.”

“That’s not what I’m…” Viktor trailed off, his meaning clear. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to buy us some time,” Yuuri said, his eyes narrowing as he clenched his hands into fists. 

Viktor looked like he wanted to protest some more, but after taking a look at Makkachin pacing back and forth anxiously in front of the two and whining, he nodded solemnly. He handed Yuuri the frying pan, Yuuri taking it rather confusedly, before lassoing his hair around the pipe Yuuri had pointed out. Viktor looked towards Yuuri once in concern, then lifted Makkachin with obvious effort under one arm and then swung down in a trail of silver and blue to join Chris and JJ in the relative safety of the gorge’s floor. 

And then the soldiers arrived.

Horses and men surrounded Yuuri on both sides, the horses coming to a halt a good ten feet away, keeping Yuuri trapped in a large semi circle, with horses to both sides, a wall to his back, and only empty air and a deadly cliffside ahead. Yuuri jerked his gaze away from the three small figures at the ground to confront the threat in front of him. He gripped the handle of the frying pan harder as they snorted and stomped in frustration and anxiety of being so far from solid ground. To his left, Yuuri saw a line of soldiers get unceremoniously pushed out of the way as the same small blonde child he’d encountered earlier that day emerged on horseback. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” Yuuri said with a smirk, trying to keep his obvious anxiety at bay. 

“Eros!” the boy said without preamble. “You are under arrest. I’m taking you back to the palace myself, where you will wait out the rest of your numbered days in the dungeons, where you belong.”

“Looks like someone didn’t have his nap today,” Yuuri taunted. Normally, he’d never be mean to a kid, but he needed to stall for time, both for his sake to come up with a plan, and for his friends’ so that they could escape through a tunnel, and the easiest way he’d found to buy some time was to make someone mad. 

Sure enough, in one smooth motion, the boy slid from his horse and drew his sword, pointing it at Yuuri. 

“I,” he growled through gritted teeth, “am not a child.”

Not even thinking about it, Yuuri batted the tip of the sword away from himself with the frying pan Viktor had shoved in his hands. The kid struck back, swinging his sword towards Yuuri’s neck once more, Yuuri again parrying the blow with the iron skillet. The two quickly fell into one of the strangest fights Yuuri had ever witnessed, the boy waving a hand at the soldiers not to interfere as he grimaced, determined not to lose a sword fight against a man with a cooking utensil. 

“Hey, kid!” Yuuri called, smiling at the rush of endorphins that accompanied every fight and at the ridiculousness of the situation. “Just so you know, this is the strangest thing I’ve ever done!”

The boy snarled, bashing his sword against Yuuri’s pan with every word, “My. Name. Is. Not. Kid. It’s Yuri!”

With his final exclamation, the boy, Yuri, sent the frying pan flying out of Yuuri’s hands. Yuuri gave a wry grin at the irony, thinking to himself, _what a surprise, mine is too,_ before thinking a few less-than-family-appropriate phrases at his loss of his “weapon” and distinct lack of anything resembling a plan. 

With a sigh, Yuuri accepted that his luck had finally run out, even as he inched closer to the edge of the carved path, feeling a few loose rocks slip out from under his feet and tumble down the cliffside. His mind reeled, spinning in circles to try and find some way that he could get out of this, but he knew it was futile. His only choices at this point were to jump and escape capture, but face certain death, or allow himself to be captured, where he might, _might_ , escape, but would again face certain death if he failed. 

The other Yuri inched closer, sensing his victory, and the soldiers behind him closed rankings, surrounding Yuuri against the edge of thin air. 

“Got you,” the blonde boy whispered, and then Yuuri felt a harsh, tugging sensation around his middle before he was sent flying through the air at the end of a lasso made of pure silver.

Yuuri crashed into something hard, and then something soft, getting a mixture of dirt and hair in his mouth as he and Viktor (who had somehow yanked him to safety in a miraculous defiance of physics) tumbled against the ground. Yuuri groaned, spitting mud, hair, and blood out of his mouth from where he had bitten his tongue. As his vision cleared, he realized what the warm weight he felt resting against his body was: Viktor, who had gotten pulled to the ground as Yuuri fell.

“You…why…?” Yuuri started to ask, unsure if he was going to ask why Viktor decided to save him, why he didn’t run to safety as soon as he could, why he was still lying on top of him, why he would risk his own life by clearly allying himself with Yuuri, why any number of things. 

Viktor just smiled softly, not in the bright, unrestrained way that turned his mouth into a heart, but in a way that made the heart of his usual smile come out through his eyes. 

Equally softly, he answered, “I wanted to surprise you as much as you surprised me,” still lying on top of Yuuri and looking at him as if the strength of his gaze alone could keep them safe. 

Yuuri blushed and smiled back instinctually, saying, “Well, it worked.” 

“Oi! If you lovebirds are done being gay and adorable, we kind of have an army on our heels.”

Yuuri blushed harder, pushing Viktor off of him (though the other man seemed to linger on top of him, not that Yuuri minded), before brushing himself off and nodding to Chris. 

“We weren’t, I mean, it’s not, we just, you know, momentum and stuff,” Yuuri stammered, waving his hands frantically in front of himself. 

Chris just rolled his eyes, while JJ asked, “How did you even end up here? What the hell happened to you? And who is this?”

“No time,” Yuuri responded, sweeping his gaze up to where the soldiers were gradually making their way down the canyon’s walls. He turned back to his friends, giving JJ a quick hug, to which he grumbled, “No time to explain, but there’s time for a hugging session,” before giving Chris one as well, to which the other man whispered, “It’s good to see your dumb ass, Yuuri.” Chris pulled back, giving Yuuri a wink, adding, “and the rest of you of course.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes, used to Chris’s antics and honestly just glad he didn’t grab his butt. 

“Good to see you guys too,” Yuuri said with a smile, before grabbing one of Viktor’s hands in his and pulling him along. “Come on, _gekkou_ , we’ve got to run!”

Behind him, he heard JJ ask Chris, “Did he just call him a lizard?” as the other two followed behind them, Makkachin already ahead of the four humans, turning back once in a while as if to say, “Do you want to die? Hurry up!”

“So what happened when we got separated?” Yuuri asked.

“Went to Seung-Gil’s,” Chris responded in between breaths. “Took the tunnel from his place to here.”

“We were going to go to Phichit’s to ask him if he knew where you went off to,” JJ continued, “but then we saw the soldiers cornering you. Figured we’d stick around to do what we could.”

Yuuri nodded, he’d have done the same if it wasn’t for the deal he had made with Viktor.

The four of them ducked as a cannonball went soaring over their heads, crashing into the cliffside beside them and sending rocks and dust tumbling down. Coughing, Yuuri glanced back quickly to where the soldiers had last been, seeing that more troops had arrived since he’d tumbled to the bottom of the gorge and were now aiming cannons at the four of them. Swearing, Yuuri turned back to Chris and JJ, both of whom were also cursing their luck. 

“We have to split up,” Yuuri began, before being interrupted by JJ. 

“No way,” he protested, Chris adding, “We got separated before by accident, no way are we going to leave you and the cute lizard boy alone.”

“Lizard boy?” Viktor muttered, having been surprisingly quiet since they started running. Then again, Yuuri supposed he, Chris, and JJ were used to running for leagues on a daily basis. Even if Viktor found some way to get exercise in his tower, it couldn’t match leaping from rooftops and sprinting full speed for minutes on end. 

“We have to,” Yuuri replied with a hardened voice. “They’ll have to either chose one group to follow, but more likely, they’ll split forces, weakening their numbers. We don’t have enough for numbers to be an advantage, our main tactic is going to be lose them, and hide. Which is much easier with two people than with four.”

After getting nods of reluctant agreement from Chris and JJ, Yuuri continued, “You two take the tunnel that lets out by the bird-shaped stump by the lake. Viktor and I will take the one that leads to the river. Meet back up tomorrow night at the Ice Castle. You know how to get there.”

Nodding once more, Chris and JJ started running again, this time in the opposite direction from where Yuuri pulled Viktor. 

“Ice…Castle?” Viktor huffed after a few paces. 

Yuuri shrugged as best as he could while running, still holding Viktor’s hand. Another cannon sounded behind them, this one breaking one of the pipes that ran through the canyon, and water came pouring out, quickly soaking Yuuri’s boots. Makkachin kept shaking, trying to get dry, but to no avail as more cannons were fired and missed, creating more debris and strengthening the flow of water into the gorge. 

“Old friends of mine own a house on a pond. His family were all cobblers, so in the winter when the pond freezes, they rent out ice skates to the kids, even some adults.” Yuuri’s expression turned wistful as he remembered Yuuko and Takeshi and their three girls, who had only been a few months old when he had distanced himself from his family in order to protect them. “I used to love to skate. Sometimes it would even be frozen by the time my birthday came, and we’d spend all day on the ice before coming in to my mom’s cooking. Katsudon was my favorite, but her curry was good too, especially after being out in the cold all day.”

Viktor was looking at him curiously, so Yuuri cut off his rambling, reminding himself that no one wanted to hear about his childhood friends or mom’s food.

“Come on, it’s right in here,” Yuuri said, trying to save himself the embarrassment of getting too personal too quickly with someone he’d known for less than 24 hours. He pulled Viktor into a small alcove in the cliffside, not slowing his pace until he ran into a pile of rocks blocking the way to the rest of the tunnel. 

_Damn weak stone_ , Yuuri thought. .

“Eros?” Viktor asked nervously, his hand still clenched tightly in Yuuri’s.

“It’s okay,” Yuuri said, sounding anything other than okay. He started back towards the small entrance they had ducked into. “There’s a few other tunnels, they just don’t let out–”

And he was abruptly cut off as an explosion sounded overhead and Makkachin yelped in alarm, Viktor yanking Yuuri back just in time to save him from getting crushed by a falling rock, before the cliffside crumbled ahead of them, plunging the three of them into darkness.  
____________________________________________________________________

Viktor’s eyes adjusted to the dark before his mind had even comprehended their situation. 

He could just barely make out the shapes of Eros and Makkachin in the –what-used-to-be-a-tunnel-now-is-a-cavern. He couldn’t see either face, but he could hear Makkachin’s distressed whines and the sharp increase in Eros’s breathing, so he figured his two companions were as scared as he was. 

Viktor obviously hadn’t grown up with much space, his tower only having a few rooms, but he’d never been in this close of quarters with no way out. He could feel the mountain pressing down on top of him, as if the cavern were to follow the rest of the tunnel and cave in on top of them. It was getting harder to breathe, he could swear the air was getting stale. And the walls were closing in! Were they closing in? They had to be, there was no way the cavern had started out this small. There was no way he’d started out pressed against Eros, feeling the heat of the other man’s body through his clothes and his labored breathing against his skin, the walls had to be getting closer, there was no room, no air, no way out, no – 

“Viktor?” Eros’s voice broke through the dark. “Why are you holding me?”

Viktor realized the walls weren’t in fact closing in on them, he had just in his infinite wisdom decided to press himself against Eros after yanking the other man back from the falling rocks. 

“Sorry.”

“It’s…” Eros trailed off, and even if Viktor couldn’t see him, he could still sense the conflict in him. “Never mind.”

The two were silent for a few seconds longer, the silence only broken by their breathing, Makkachin’s panting, and…

“Eros?”

“Yes?”

“Are your feet wet as well? Like not just from the mud outside but actually in water?”

Eros swore violently at that, noticing the water slowly filling the cavern from holes in the collapsed entrance and ceiling above. Even as Viktor asked, he could tell the water level was getting higher, and not gradually, as more leaks sprung from the rock overhead. The cannons that hit the sides of the gorge must have broken some of the water routes within the stone. Even though water was leaking in through what used to be the entrance, there was no way the gorge had already filled up enough for the water to need that difficult of an escape route. 

“We need to get out of here. Now.” Eros left no room for argument. 

Viktor immediately started pushing and digging at the rocks that blocked the entrance, thinking that since they had been there for the shortest amount of time, nature had yet to do its work and they would be easiest to shift. He threw himself against the stones time and time again, sure he was bruising his shoulder, but to no avail. Pulling at the rocks was no use, there were no decent handholds to truly pull and they were becoming slippery with water and almost impossible to get any sort of hold on. Eros was having no luck with the rocks blocking the tunnel either. Even Makkachin could make no headway, his frantic digging at the base of the rocks futile. 

“It’s useless!” Eros shouted, banging his first on one of the rocks before resting his forehead on the wall dejectedly. The water had reached above Viktor’s knees at this point, Makkachin could still hold his head above the water, but it wouldn’t be long before he had to swim to keep breathing. Viktor reached down and picked his friend up, not wanting the poodle to have to overexert himself. 

“No,” Viktor said. “No, we can’t just give up, we’re not going to die here!” 

He pushed past Eros’s dejected form, handing Makkachin off to the other man, and pounded on the rocks that blocked the tunnel beyond.

“I. Can’t. Die. Here!” he shouted, banging his fist on each word, then giving the pile a swift kick when nothing moved. He shoved one last time, before he too slumping in defeat next to Eros, taking Makkachin back into his arms. The dog licked his cheek gently, trying to comfort Viktor even when he surely was scared himself. Viktor nuzzled his face against the poodle’s gently, not caring that his fur smelled like classic wet dog. 

“I’m sorry,” Eros said quietly, so quietly that Viktor almost missed it. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Viktor turned to the other man, seeing the faint light seeping through holes in the rocks bordering the entrance glint off of wetness on his face. 

“What are you sorry for?” Viktor asked, unsure how to react to someone crying. Makkachin only cried during storms, and then Viktor would wrap him and Makkachin in his blanket and tell stories to the dog by the fire until his cries quieted. Viktor didn’t think that method would work here, and besides, he had neither a blanket nor a fire. 

“It’s my fault,” Eros said, tears in his voice. “It’s all my fault, it’s my fault we’re stuck here, I was the one to chose this path, I was the one who put Phichit in danger, I was the one to climb your tower, I was the one to make a noise to even lead to this whole mess in the first place. You trusted me, so many people trusted me, and I let them all down, and now I’m even bringing you down with me, and it’s all my fault.”

Viktor decided, he really wasn’t good with people crying. 

“It’s not all your fault,” he said, hoping that something he said might help the other man. “I was the one who made you take me to see the lights. You’re not responsible for me. If anything, it’s the other way. I take responsibility for this mess, it’s my fault not yours.”

“Don’t do that!” Eros yelled, the sudden outburst startling Viktor so much he almost dropped Makkachin. “Don’t try and take the blame for all of this, don’t try and protect me, I don’t need it, I don’t need your pity. You had faith in me, now you don’t, I get that, I fucked up, but don’t you dare take responsibility for my mess.”

“I…I’m sorry,” Viktor said. “I’m…I’m not good with people crying in front of me. No one ever has before,” he said much quieter. 

“Really?” Eros asked surprised. 

Viktor shrugged, the motion unseen but felt.

“It was always just me and мама, I mean, Mother, and she doesn’t cry.” Viktor gave a hollow laugh. “I don’t think she knows how to cry.” 

“That’s…sad.”

Viktor gave a little hum of agreement, both men descending once more into silence as the water rose to their waists. 

“Yuuri.”

“What?” Viktor asked, surprised to hear the other man say anything after so long.

Eros sighed.

“My name. My real name. It’s Katsuki Yuuri. I…I figured you should know. If we’re both going to die here.”

“I like it.”

Eros – Yuuri, turned to Viktor, his eyes wide.

“You, what?”

Viktor hummed again. 

“Your name. I like it. Yuuri. It…” Viktor searched for the right words. “It suits you.”

“I never thought it did,” Yuuri said. “It means courage, and I was, well, I’m not that brave.”

Viktor laughed outright at that.

“Not that brave? You steal from people who could kill you for it to help your family, you take on entire armies to save me and your friends, you climb a tower that you’ve never seen before, you sword fight children with a frying pan, need I go on?”

Yuuri was grinning at this point, despite the water that had reached their chests. 

“It fits you. You are brave, you are courageous, you are strong. Yuuri fits you better than Eros ever could, despite how attractive you are in those pants.”

Yuuri squeaked at that part, probably embarrassed, but if they were going to drown here, Viktor wasn’t holding anything back. 

“It’s been an honor to know you, Katsuki Yuuri,” Viktor finished, “and an honor to know your secret. Thank you.”

“I…that’s not…” Yuuri started to deny Viktor’s thanks, but he finally said, “well, you’re welcome then,” before teasing the other man, “what about you, _gekkou_ , have any deep dark secrets of your own?”

He was only joking, but Viktor answered honestly, tactlessly, and without thinking, wanting to bare everything to the man who had given him so much in their final moments.

“I have magic hair that glows when I sing.”

…

“What?!”

“I…” Viktor started, the realization just dawning on him at that very moment. “I have magic hair that glows when I sing!”

The water had reached their neck, Viktor having time only to quickly ramble out the first few lines before it reached covered their faces, reaching the top of the cavern just moments later.

But it was enough. 

Viktor saw the light flow from his scalp, down all the way to the ends of his hair, lighting the cavern, now totally underwater, in a brilliant silver glow. Yuuri took one look at him and shrieked, quickly swimming back a few feet in alarm, the sound muffled by the water, and Viktor quickly shoved a hand over his mouth to stop Yuuri from losing any more air than he already had. Viktor wasn’t sure what would happen, normally the magic only created light and then healed, but magic has a funny way of knowing exactly how to help. Sure enough, the ends of his hair gathered near one specific rock that led to the tunnel, wrapping in such a way that almost seemed like the hair was pointing a finger at the place where they should dig. Viktor swam over quickly, followed by a reluctant Yuuri, and began to tug at the rock. Makkachin tried to help dig it out, but without anything to brace himself against, it was left mostly up to the humans to shift the rock.

Viktor’s lungs were burning by the time they finally were able to shift the pile, probably only a few seconds, but it felt like hours. But as he and Yuuri wiggled the rock out from the pile of stone, all of them collapsed in on themselves, sending two men and a dog tumbling into the river in a waterfall of blue water and silver hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I USED THE ENGLISH DUB VERSION INSTEAD OF THE SUB WHICH IS WHAT I NORMALLY WATCH BECAUSE ITS. SO. MUCH. GAYER. LIKE HOW IS IT POSSIBLE FOR THEM TO BE SO GAY. IM SORRY THEY HAVENT KISSED YET BUT YOU KNOW NEITHER HAVE I SO ALLS FAIR GET ME A SO IF YOU WANT THEM TO KISS nah I’ve got it schedules for like chapter 9ish regardless if I get an SO or not but you know that would be a bonus I wouldn’t say no. Also if yall find plot holes like things characters know that they shouldn’t cause they haven’t been told, let me know cause I don’t have the energy to go back and reread everything to try and see what I’ve revealed to who when.
> 
> As you can now see, I've added chapter titles beyond just the numbering. If anyone has a word that begins with L (for obvious reasons) that fits better than the one I have as the title pleaseeeee let me know cause these beginning chapters I'm like idk man there's not that many words that begin with L XD


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